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Vocal percussion is the art of creating sounds with one's mouth that approximate, imitate, or otherwise serve the same purpose as a percussion instrument, whether in a group of singers, an instrumental ensemble, or solo.
Recent musicological research points at Brazilian songwriter and musician Marcos Valle as a pioneer of vocal percussion.[ citation needed ] In the track "Mentira" from his 1973 album Previsão do Tempo , Valle imitates a drum kit with his voice.
Beatboxing, an art form pioneered by rapper Doug E. Fresh, is one school of vocal percussion, originating in hip-hop music and often used to accompany rapping. Stylistically, it is more expansive than traditional vocal percussion as it involves mimicking other sound effects and instruments with the voice such as trumpets, scratches, and bass-lines. It is utilized by many musicians spanning over a wide variety of genres.
Vocal percussion is also an integral part of many world music traditions, most notably in the traditions of North India (bols) and South India (solkattu). Syllables are used to learn percussion compositions, and each syllable signifies what stroke or combination of strokes the percussionist must use.
The art of speaking these syllables is called konnakol in South India, and traditional dance ensembles sometimes have a dedicated konnakol singer, although this practice is now waning. At one time it was a very respected art form, with many masters and singers.
In North India, the practice of reciting bols is usually limited to the percussionist reciting the composition about to be played, often in the context of a longer solo. These recitations are also sometimes spoken by a Kathak dancer.
Mouth drumming is a form of Beatboxing which involves vocally imitating the sound of a drum kit as precisely as possible in order to use the voice to serve the same function as a drummer in a musical setting. It is mostly used in a cappella music but has also been used in rock and jazz. Artists who specialize in this technique are simply referred to as vocal percussionists. [1]
Wes Carroll is credited as the term coiner and pioneering practitioner of this art. [2] Well-known for his ability to realistically vocalize the sounds of a drum kit, and use them as the primary rhythm section in bands and a cappella groups, he inspired many vocalists and musicians to continue this art form after him. Jeff Thacher and Dave Baumgartner [3] are other well-known pioneers.
Many a cappella groups use mouth drumming as a way of using the voice to provide a steady rhythm section for their music.
A cappella groups such as Five o-clock Shadow, The House Jacks, Rockapella, Overboard, SoVoSo, Transit and Naturally 7 are well known for further advancing the art and its popularity.
Although it is not common, mouth drumming has also been used in traditional band settings. David Worm (who has also performed it for the a cappella group SoVoSo) has often incorporated the technique in his acoustic rock band "Glass house". Kaichiro Kitamura [4] is a Japanese vocal percussionist specializing in this art who has incorporated it in both a cappella and jazz groups. Otha Major is another vocal percussionist and beatboxer, who has often used the technique in rock performances as well as with the a cappella group Kickshaw.
A cappella music is a performance by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment, or a piece intended to be performed in this fashion. The term a cappella was originally intended to differentiate between Renaissance polyphony and Baroque concertato musical styles. In the 19th century, a renewed interest in Renaissance polyphony, coupled with an ignorance of the fact that vocal parts were often doubled by instrumentalists, led to the term coming to mean unaccompanied vocal music. The term is also used, rarely, as a synonym for alla breve.
A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Excluding zoomusicological instruments and the human voice, the percussion family is believed to include the oldest musical instruments. In spite of being a very common term to designate instruments, and to relate them to their players, the percussionists, percussion is not a systematic classificatory category of instruments, as described by the scientific field of organology. It is shown below that percussion instruments may belong to the organological classes of idiophone, membranophone, aerophone and cordophone.
A jazz band is a musical ensemble that plays jazz music. Jazz bands vary in the quantity of its members and the style of jazz that they play but it is common to find a jazz band made up of a rhythm section and a horn section.
Vocal music is a type of singing performed by one or more singers, either with instrumental accompaniment, or without instrumental accompaniment, in which singing provides the main focus of the piece. Music which employs singing but does not feature it prominently is generally considered to be instrumental music as is music without singing. Music without any non-vocal instrumental accompaniment is referred to as a cappella.
Trilok Gurtu is an Indian percussionist and composer whose work has blended the music of India with jazz fusion and world music.
Beatboxing is a form of vocal percussion primarily involving the art of mimicking drum machines, using one's mouth, lips, tongue, and voice. It may also involve vocal imitation of turntablism, and other musical instruments. Beatboxing today is connected with hip-hop culture, often referred to as "the fifth element" of hip-hop, although it is not limited to hip-hop music. The term "beatboxing" is sometimes used to refer to vocal percussion in general.
A rhythm section is a group of musicians within a music ensemble or band that provides the underlying rhythm, harmony and pulse of the accompaniment, providing a rhythmic and harmonic reference and "beat" for the rest of the band. The rhythm section is often contrasted with the roles of other musicians in the band, such as the lead guitarist or lead vocals whose primary job is to carry the melody.
A beatboxer is a person who performs beatboxing vocal percussion.
The pakhavaj is a barrel-shaped, two-headed drum, originating from the Indian subcontinent, the oldest version of double sided drums and its descendants are mridangam of Southern India and kendang of Maritime Southeast Asia and other South Asian double-headed drums. Its older forms were made with clay.
Leonardo Roman, better known by his stage name Wise, is a hip hop record producer and member of hip hop group Stetsasonic, commonly hailed as hip hop's first live band.
Wes Carroll is known as a pioneer and teacher of mouth drumming, a form of vocal percussion from the musical genre of contemporary a cappella, now widely known as beatboxing.
Jeffrey Thomas Thacher is an American musician, best known as a member of the vocal group Rockapella. A professional vocal percussionist and singer who emerged on the early contemporary a cappella scene in 1991, Jeff Thacher co-founded the Boston-based a cappella group Five O'Clock Shadow that year and went on to join Rockapella in 1993 as their full-time mouth-drummer.
Body percussion may be performed on its own or as an accompaniment to music and/or dance. Examples of countries' folk traditions that incorporate body percussion include Indonesian saman, Ethiopian armpit music, palmas in flamenco, and the hambone from the United States. Body percussion is a subset of "body music".
Konnakol is the art of performing percussion syllables vocally in South Indian Carnatic music. Konnakol is the spoken component of solkattu, which refers to a combination of konnakol syllables spoken while simultaneously counting the tala (meter) with the hand. It is comparable in some respects to bol in Hindustani music, but allows the composition, performance or communication of rhythms. A similar concept in Hindustani classical music is called padhant.
Non-lexical vocables, which may be mixed with meaningful text, are a form of nonsense syllable used in a wide variety of music. Common English examples are "la la la", "na na na" and "da da da".
Vocal harmony is a style of vocal music in which a consonant note or notes are simultaneously sung as a main melody in a predominantly homophonic texture. Vocal harmonies are used in many subgenres of European art music, including Classical choral music and opera and in the popular styles from many Western cultures ranging from folk songs and musical theater pieces to rock ballads. In the simplest style of vocal harmony, the main vocal melody is supported by a single backup vocal line, either at a pitch which is above or below the main vocal line, often in thirds or sixths which fit in with the chord progression used in the song. In more complex vocal harmony arrangements, different backup singers may sing two or even three other notes at the same time as each of the main melody notes, mostly with a consonant, pleasing-sounding thirds, sixths, and fifths.
vocaldente are an a cappella quintet from Hanover, Germany.
The House Jacks is a professional a cappella quintet from San Francisco, founded in 1991 by Deke Sharon.
Kaichiro Kitamura is a Japanese vocal percussionist, singer, and music teacher who has performed vocal percussion, in both a cappella and instrumental groups. He specializes in jazz but has also done rock, pop, and RnB.
Padhant in Hindustani classical music or Indian classical dance refers to the recitation of rhythmic syllables, known as bol, during a performance. The term is derived from the Hindi word padhna, meaning "to read, study or recite". Padhant is closely associated with the percussion instrument tabla and the classical dance Kathak, and the recitation of rhythmic patterns before playing them is considered an art in itself. The dancer in Kathak would pause at intervals to recite the rhythms before executing them through dance. The recitation is often accompanied by hand gestures. The recited syllables are also used in storytelling, creating an atmosphere or inducing a mood in the audience; for example, in a performance of Kalidasa's Meghaduta, the sounds ghe-ghe-thi-ta can signify a rumble of clouds or, its expanded version, the arrival of clouds. In Carnatic music, a similar concept is called konnakol.